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Post by Watchman on May 15, 2006 15:21:23 GMT -5
And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and [upon] them which worshipped his image.
And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment [was] as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. Doctors puzzled over bizarre infection surfacing in South Texas KENS 5 Eyewitness News | May 12, 2006 By Deborah Knapp If diseases like AIDS and bird flu scare you, wait until you hear what's next. Doctors are trying to find out what is causing a bizarre and mysterious infection that's surfaced in South Texas. Morgellons disease is not yet known to kill, but if you were to get it, you might wish you were dead, as the symptoms are horrible. "These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," said Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who treats a majority of these patients. Patients get lesions that never heal. "Sometimes little black specks that come out of the lesions and sometimes little fibers," said Stephanie Bailey, Morgellons patient. Patients say that's the worst symptom — strange fibers that pop out of your skin in different colors. "He'd have attacks and fibers would come out of his hands and fingers, white, black and sometimes red. Very, very painful," said Lisa Wilson, whose son Travis had Morgellon's disease. While all of this is going on, it feels like bugs are crawling under your skin. So far more than 100 cases of Morgellons disease have been reported in South Texas. "It really has the makings of a horror movie in every way," Savely said. While Savely sees this as a legitimate disease, there are many doctors who simply refuse to acknowledge it exists, because of the bizarre symptoms patients are diagnosed as delusional. "Believe me, if I just randomly saw one of these patients in my office, I would think they were crazy too," Savely said. "But after you've heard the story of over 100 (patients) and they're all — down to the most minute detail — saying the exact same thing, that becomes quite impressive." Travis Wilson developed Morgellons just over a year ago. He called his mother in to see a fiber coming out of a lesion. "It looked like a piece of spaghetti was sticking out about a quarter to an eighth of an inch long and it was sticking out of his chest," Lisa Wilson said. "I tried to pull it as hard as I could out and I could not pull it out." The Wilson's spent $14,000 after insurance last year on doctors and medicine. "Most of them are antibiotics. He was on Tamadone for pain. Viltricide, this was an anti-parasitic. This was to try and protect his skin because of all the lesions and stuff," Lisa said. However, nothing worked, and 23-year-old Travis could no longer take it. "I knew he was going to kill himself, and there was nothing I could do to stop him," Lisa Wilson said. Just two weeks ago, Travis took his life. Stephanie Bailey developed the lesions four-and-a-half years ago. "The lesions come up, and then these fuzzy things like spores come out," she said. She also has the crawling sensation. "You just want to get it out of you," Bailey said. She has no idea what caused the disease, and nothing has worked to clear it up. "They (doctors) told me I was just doing this to myself, that I was nuts. So basically I stopped going to doctors because I was afraid they were going to lock me up," Bailey said. Harriett Bishop has battled Morgellons for 12 years. After a year on antibiotics, her hands have nearly cleared up. On the day, we visited her she only had one lesion and she extracted this fiber from it. "You want to get these things out to relieve the pain, and that's why you pull and then you can see the fibers there, and the tentacles are there, and there are millions of them," Bishop said. So far, pathologists have failed to find any infection in the fibers pulled from lesions. "Clearly something is physically happening here," said Dr. Randy Wymore, a researcher at the Morgellons Research Foundation at Oklahoma State University's Center for Health Sciences. Wymore examines the fibers, scabs and other samples from Morgellon's patients to try and find the disease's cause. "These fibers don't look like common environmental fibers," he said. The goal at OSU is to scientifically find out what is going on. Until then, patients and doctors struggle with this mysterious and bizarre infection. Thus far, the only treatment that has showed some success is an antibiotic. "It sounds a little like a parasite, like a fungal infection, like a bacterial infection, but it never quite fits all the criteria of any known pathogen," Savely said No one knows how Morgellans is contracted, but it does not appear to be contagious. The states with the highest number of cases are Texas, California and Florida. The only connection found so far is that more than half of the Morgellons patients are also diagnosed with Lyme disease. For more information on Morgellons, visit the research foundation's Web site at www.morgellons.org. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
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Post by Watchman on May 20, 2006 10:19:54 GMT -5
Symptoms include persistent lesions, fibers popping out of skin, brain fog
Ron Strom / World Net Daily | May 18 2006
A nonprofit foundation is working to drum up awareness of a border-area mystery disease that's been described as something out of a horror film, but which most mainstream doctors refuse to admit exists.
The Morgellons Research Foundation hopes to inform lawmakers and public-health officials of the disease to try to work toward an eventual cure.
As WorldNetDaily reported, Morgellons disease, a mysterious infection seemingly similar to one documented 300 years ago, is spreading throughout South Texas. While the disease has not been known to kill and doesn't appear to be contagious, it's the horrible symptoms that have some working feverishly to find an effective treatment.
The South Texas outbreak's proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border comes at a time when the issues of illegal immigration, border security and possible amnesty for over 12 million illegal aliens are being debated in the U.S.
According to the foundation's website, symptoms include skin lesions that do not heal, a crawling sensation on the surface of the skin, fatigue, cognitive difficulties and, perhaps the most disturbing, fibers popping out of the skin.
Fibers removed from facial lesion of 3-year-old boy
States the site: "[The fibers] are generally described by patients as white, but clinicians also report seeing blue, green, red, and black fibers, that fluoresce when viewed under ultraviolet light (Wood's lamp)."
Travis Wilson, a Morgellons sufferer for over a year, once called his mother in to see a fiber coming out of a lesion in his chest.
"It looked like a piece of spaghetti was sticking out about a quarter to an eighth of an inch long and it was sticking out of his chest," Lisa Wilson told the San Antonio Express-News. "I tried to pull it as hard as I could out and I could not pull it out.
"He'd have attacks and fibers would come out of his hands and fingers, white, black and sometimes red. Very, very painful," said Wilson.
A variety of other symptoms range from neurological and gastrointestinal problems to changes in skin pigment. Some people have also reported black, tarry beads of sweat.
While it's impossible to know how many Americans – who appear to be concentrated in California, Texas and Florida – suffer with the disease, the foundation says thousands with one or more symptom have registered with it.
Even so, most of the medical community don't see the disease as real, with some doctors telling patients it's all in their head.
"They (doctors) told me I was just doing this to myself, that I was nuts. So basically I stopped going to doctors because I was afraid they were going to lock me up," said sufferer Stephanie Bailey.
A big question medical professionals are wrestling with is how victims come down with the disease.
"It is difficult to say whether Morgellons is contagious," states the FAQ page on the foundation's site. "Many of our group have family members who exhibit no symptoms whatever. On the other hand, many entire families have reported becoming infected at or near the same time. At this juncture, it remains unclear if these households with multiple infected members reflect contagion, due to human-to-human transmission, or some type of mutual exposure."
The name for the disease comes from a condition involving "black hairs" emerging from the skin of children, which was documented in France in the 1600s. While experts say it is doubtful the modern-day disease is linked to the 17th century occurrences, the name was chosen, says the Morgellons Foundation, to provide "a consistent label when addressing politicians, physicians and health departments."
Mary Leitao is executive director of the Morgellons Foundation. She became involved several years ago when her 2-year-old son began exhibiting symptoms.
"The goal of the foundation is to find a cure for Morgellons disease," Leitao told WND. "The other goal is to determine the cause."
Leitao explained that Randy Wymore, Ph.D., of Oklahoma State University is working on getting research work started at the school.
"His goal is to see patients and to investigate it medically and scientifically," Leitao said.
One obstacle, she explained, is that there is not a diagnostic test for Morgellons disease. Even so, Leitao stressed that the skin lesions with fibers appears to be a symptom that links nearly all victims.
"If a physician is able to view these skin lesions under magnification, they may see these fibers," Leitao said.
Since the disease is hard to pin down, treatments vary widely.
Said Leitao: "Some physicians are treating it with pretty high-dose antibiotics. Others are using other meds, including pain medications. It can be a very uncomfortable disease for people."
Leitao said officials at the Centers for Disease Control are "not sure there's a situation going on here" so are reticent to take action.
"I don't think the CDC has heard from enough physicians, because many physicians don't recognize the illness," she said. "They just think the illness is psychosomatic."
Leitao stressed she is committed to finding a cure because of the devastation she has seen in the lives of victims. Many no longer work because of the brain fog that often accompanies the disorder.
"They can't mentally focus on tasks," she said. "They're extremely fatigued and severely depressed – in addition to the skin symptoms."
Indeed, Travis Wilson committed suicide three weeks ago.
"I knew he was going to kill himself, and there was nothing I could do to stop him," his mother said.
Dr. Adelaide Hebert of the University of Texas Health Science Center Houston is unconvinced Morgellons is an actual medical disorder.
"I think if we look at what is truly evidence-based medicine, what has been proven based on scientific fact we know we don't have a means to substantiate [Morgellons]," Hebert told KVUE-TV.
Hebert believes Morgellons exists only in the patient's mind.
"Many of these patients do have delusion of parasitosis," Hebert is quoted as saying. "It is actually not uncommon to have patients come in and describe the sensation that something is crawling on their skin."
Ginger Savely is a nurse practitioner in Austin, Texas, who has documented over 100 incidents of Morgellons.
"[Sufferers] can't get anybody to help them in the medical profession. It's just a nightmare, a living nightmare. I can't imagine any worse disease," she told the TV station.
Some doctors who do recognize the disorder as a medical disease sit on the Medical Advisory Board of the Morgellons Research Foundation.
Says Gregory V. Smith, M.D., a member of the board: "This disorder is much more common than anyone suspects. … During the course of my practice activity, I have seen numerous children … a minimum of three children daily in my office with suspicious skin lesions."
Adds another board member, William T. Harvey, M.D.: "The Morgellon's phenomenon is real. It is also clearly devastating, life-shortening and infectious. I have observed the herald lesions microscopically with their central fibers in dozens of patients."
Leitao remains hopeful for a cure – not only for her own son but countless others.
"It's a bizarre disease; I will admit to that," Leitao said. "But it's a real disease and the people need real help."
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Post by Watchman on May 20, 2006 13:40:58 GMT -5
Morgellons or Morgellons disease is a controversial name for an alleged polysymptomatic syndrome characterized by the patient's presentation of intense itching, skin lesions and the patient's claim of finding unusual structures, fibers or objects in or on the skin as well as a wide range of other chronic symptoms. These symptoms are occasionally accompanied by the belief in infestation by some unknown arthropod or parasite. The term Morgellons is not in accepted use by the medical community and the syndrome is widely held by the medical community to be a presentation of delusional parasitosis. There is no agreed-upon physical cause, etiology, diagnostic criteria or proven treatment.
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Post by Watchman on May 20, 2006 13:44:57 GMT -5
And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.
A mysterious skin disease is spreading across the country... It may be a coinfection of the already nasty Lyme disease. Aids, Lyme disease, the bird flu, and now this.... Hmmmm!
Thousands of sufferers have been reported. The majority of individuals reporting symptoms of Morgellons Disease reside in California, Texas, and Florida. Several distinct "cluster" areas of this disease have been noted (in order of cluster density) near Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, and Austin, Texas.
The mysterious skin disease is spreading across the country. It's a parasite-like infection that will literally make your skin crawl. Patients say it feels like bugs are crawling all over you. To make matters even worse, many doctors say the victims are delusional.
Morgellons Disease sufferer
Five years ago, the Dills bought their dream home. Then, two years later, Anne, her husband and their four children all got very sick at the very same time. They think they have Morgellons, even though they have no idea how they would have contracted it. Morgellons is an unusual parasite-like skin disease, which produces irritating sores all over the body.
Anne’s 20-year-old son, Tony, also has trouble, "I itch all the time still. I scratch my back constantly. I use the wall when I can't reach my upper back.” The sores ooze blue fibers, white threads and little black specks of sand-like material. "The sores are very funny looking says Anne, “It's something we've never seen before.” The Dills say they're also plagued with a constant, creepy crawling feeling of bugs under their skin.
“I would lay in the bed and it felt like an army of ants just crawling over the bed, all over my body,” says one Morgellon’s Disease sufferer.
“It never goes away,” says another. “It doesn’t die, it doesn’t leave.”
Becky Bailey moved out of her Austin, Texas home and into a trailer hoping to escape the bugs that torment her. "We ripped out our carpet and burned our carpet and furniture and move out into our R-V and they were still one me."
Kaye Koeberle, a Morgellons disease patient from Houston, told a TV station reporter that an unexplainable growth caused her to itch uncontrollably before the growth felt like it had crawled out of her skin.
"When I would get out of the shower, it would itch so bad I could hardly stand it. One day, I was in front of the mirror and I could see these white things, five of them, just sticking out of my shoulder," Koeberle said.
Some patients said they have even tried to perform their own research to show doctors what is living beneath their skin.
"I took (a sample) and put it in a petri dish. Those filaments would grow and get longer and longer, and curl around the petri dish," Koeberle said.
What sounds like a science fiction movie is actually real life for the unlucky people who have contracted the disease which leaves painful sores all over the body. The sores ooze blue fibers, white threads and little black specks of sand-like material.
Ginger Savely is a nurse practitioner who specializes in treating the tick-borne Lyme Disease. She also has firsthand experience with the mystery disease. "Right now I think I have about 28 Morgellons patients,” says Savely. Savely says the antibiotics she gives to patients with Lyme are also working on some Morgellons patients. "It's just uncanny,” she says.
"I think this is like a horrible science fiction movie. First off, all you have is this horrible and scary situation going on in your own body that's different than anything you've ever heard of, so it feels like you've been inhabited by aliens, and then to add insult to injury, no one will believe you," Savely said.
Even though many doctors do not recognize Morgellons as a disease, Savely thinks the sheer numbers of people reporting symptoms add to its credibility. California is the only state with more reported cases than Texas.
"I can't believe the people from all over, all walks of life, would describe something the very same way if it were a delusion," Savely said.
The sickly skin disease has actually been around for centuries. In 1935, an English physician wrote a paper about Morgellon’s including excerpts from medical journals from the 1600’s, describing the disease.
Unfortunately, not much was known then about Morgellon’s -- and not much has been learned in the more than 400 years since.
Doctors don't know what causes the disease, who is at risk and exactly how many people may be suffering. The Morgellons Foundation says they have about 1,200 people registered on their site. Those are only people who have a computer and happened to find them online. The foundation fears the real number of people infected with this mystery disease is much higher.
Doctors said they have noticed that many patients who complain about Morgellons symptoms have also been treated or are undergoing treatment for Lyme disease, which suppresses the immune system. The doctors said when the immune system is corrected, the crawling feelings under the patient's skin is often corrected too.
According to the Morgellons Research Foundation:
Additional symptons include: An extremely high percentage of our members report the following: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Fibromyalgia (Myalgic Encephalopathy or ME), "brain fog" or cognitive decline, ADHD, mood disorders (primarily Bipolar Disorder and depression), joint swelling and pain, rapid visual and neurological decline, autoimmune disease, and hair loss. Many of these common additional symptoms appear to be related to inflammation.
Some of the symptoms and physical structures associated with this disease are unusual and may lead physicians to assume that the patient is misinterpreting their situation. Nearly all (95% of) adults with the symptoms of this skin disease have received a diagnosis of DOP or Delusional Parasitosis.
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Post by Watchman on Jun 28, 2006 16:33:44 GMT -5
Is there an ancient disease that is currently plaguing people on this planet? According to several Internet news sources including some posting at the rense.com website, there may be. What's more, it may be a recurrence of something that last touched us several centuries ago.
The so-called Morgellons Disease, characterized by "a parasite-like infection that literally makes the infected person's skin crawl," has been diagnosed in thousands of patients in Florida, Texas and California, according to reports.
The visible effects are sores all over the victim's body, which reportedly "ooze blue fibers, white threads and little black specks of sand-like material." Those suffering may also experience (in addition to the constant itching/crawling sensation) "chronic fatigue, brain fog or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, joint swelling or hair loss." Attempts to eradicate these infestations have been unsuccessful.
The only connection with any known disease has been through a medical paper written nearly a century ago (1935), which researched medical journals describing a similar disease, from the 1600s, with the same symptoms. And recent research may even be discovering the cause, which could lead to a cure someday. The National Pediculosis Association in Boston, Massachusetts, formed to increase awareness about head lice and to protect children from pesticides, has discovered a microscopic entity called collembolan in the bodies of many who suffer from Morgellons. However, the CDC has not approved further study. - ST
staff reports - Free-Market News Network
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Post by Watchman on Jul 22, 2006 14:13:11 GMT -5
Bizarre fibers. Black sweat. Bugs under the skin. Welcome to the controversial world of Morgellons disease. By Jesse Hyde It's well past midnight in Leander, Texas, and as usual, Travis Wilson can't sleep. His skin is itching. It's always itching. He tries not to think about it, but it's been itching for more than a year, and he cannot make it stop. It's driving him crazy. He paces the halls, careful not to wake his mother, who is sleeping downstairs. It's a big house--3,000 square feet--but sometimes she hears him stirring, playing his guitar, watching TV or writing in his online journal. Anything to keep his mind off the "nonstop itching/biting/crawling" sensation under his skin. In many ways, he's a normal 22-year-old, albeit a bit troubled. He is of average height and build, with the pale skin of someone who spends most of his time in front of a computer. He's struggled with drug addiction, loneliness and depression, and he and his mom have had their issues, although things are better now. He's taking classes at the community college in Austin where his mom works as a software engineer, and he's made some friends there. Maybe he'll move out soon. If only he could get better. He's always been sickly, even as a boy growing up in Washington state, but this is unlike anything he and his mom have seen before. The itching isn't even the worst of it. He has lesions all over his thin, frail body, on his legs, his arms, the back of his neck. His sweat is black, thick as tar. Something is terribly wrong with him. He knows what it is, even if most doctors don't acknowledge it as a real disease. It's called Morgellons. He discovered it on the Internet in January 2005. All over the country, but especially in Texas, Florida and California, people are diagnosing themselves. They are ranchers and lawyers and bartenders, people from all walks of life, in cities big and small. And they have the same symptoms--the itching, the lesions, the fibers. Yes, the fibers. That's really the worst part. Fibers sprouting from his skin. Thin, like fishing wire, sometimes blue or red, growing from his body. One night he looked down and, to his horror, saw a spaghetti-like strand sticking out of his chest. He called out to his mom, who found a pair of tweezers and tried to pull it out, but the fiber sunk back, like it had a mind of its own. He figures he caught the disease in Mexico, perhaps from drinking the water. Or maybe he caught it because he has Lyme disease, like his mother. There are all kinds of theories on the Internet: Maybe it came from "chemtrails"--the exhaust plumes from jet planes--or chiggers or a government conspiracy. He doesn't know what to believe. He has a disease with no known cause and, worse, no known cure. Beyond the bizarre physical symptoms, it makes him weak and forgetful. His left hand sometimes trembles, he loses his sense of smell, he goes days without sleeping or eating. Morgellons, a disease that may not even be real, is slowly killing him. And although he doesn't know it yet, he will become its public face. Before 2002, nobody had heard of Morgellons disease. Today, there are more than 4,000 people in the United States who say they have it, and hundreds more worldwide. Doctors who believe the disease is real, and there are at least a dozen, have no idea what causes it. As Wilson discovered, the theories range from the plausible (bugs) to the outlandish (French bottled water). Whatever its cause, those who have seen the disease up close say it is horrifying, like something out of a sci-fi movie. "It's unlike anything we've seen to this point," says Ginger Savely, a San Francisco nurse practitioner who has treated more than 125 Morgellons patients, most of them from Texas. "It's so different that it sounds kind of...well, it's scary because it's so different. Some of the things I've seen, it could really make you doubt your own sanity." Wilson's symptoms, for example--lesions, black sweat, colored fibers sprouting from the skin--are some of the most commonly described symptoms. Other side effects include hair loss, "brain fog," crippling fatigue and, occasionally, the disintegration of teeth. Two of the largest clusters of the disease, according to the Morgellons Research Foundation, are in the Houston and Dallas areas. Judy Egan, a 55-year-old bar manager who lives near Arlington, says she and her husband contracted Morgellons about a year ago after handling produce at a farmers market near Mansfield. Both have seen strange fibers coming out of their skin. Others who have the illness are afraid to speak publicly about it, fearing friends and co-workers will think they're nuts. "If somebody would have told me about this two and a half years ago I would have thought, well, too much LSD for you," says an Allen middle school teacher who didn't want to be identified. "You know, this doesn't sound like anything from our world. It's so out there." Mainstream medicine dismisses the disease as imaginary, and most Morgellons sufferers have been diagnosed with delusional parasitosis, a psychiatric condition in which patients believe they are infested with parasites. Psychiatrists have noted that patients with this disorder will sometimes dig out small fibers--which are most likely peripheral nerve endings--to prove that bugs are in fact crawling under their skin. Other doctors suspect the fibers are actually from clothing, carpet or upholstery. "It's probably just a variant of delusions of parasitosis," says Dr. Dan Eisen, a University of California at Davis dermatologist. "It's fairly common. Most dermatologists have seen people who complain that they have bugs crawling under their skin. This sounds like the same thing, except they're not complaining of bugs, they're complaining of fibers." Doctors such as Eisen also say it's unlikely that the varied symptoms associated with Morgellons--from lesions to joint pain to loss of vision--could all be caused by the same disease. What's more likely is that as word of Morgellons spreads through the Internet and television news coverage, more people become convinced they have it. If this is the case, then Morgellons is one in a long line of weird diseases that have swept through populations, only to disappear without a trace once public concern subsides. Until recently, public health officials more or less ignored Morgellons. Now, after more than a year of fielding complaints and inquiries from around the country, the Centers for Disease Control is forming a task force to investigate. What they will find is anybody's guess. Perhaps Morgellons is an imaginary disease. Or perhaps, as some doctors have suggested, it is the scariest thing ever to hit America. The story of Morgellons disease begins in the summer of 2001 in suburban Pennsylvania, when, for no explicable reason, a 2-year-old boy comes down with a mysterious rash. Lesions then break out over his entire body, including his lips. An infectious disease specialist diagnoses him with a rare form of scabies and prescribes an anti-fungal cream. The boy's mother, Mary Leitao, is assured the rash will clear up. One night while spreading the cream on her son's arms, Leitao notices something coming out of his skin. It looks like balls of fuzz or maybe dead bugs. Even under magnification, she can't tell exactly what she's looking at. Maybe it's scabies excrement, she thinks. As her son's health deteriorates, Leitao becomes frustrated with her dermatologist, who doesn't know what's wrong with the boy. So Leitao turns to the Internet. On a scabies message board she details her son's condition. "If your son has fibers coming out of his skin, you're in really deep weeds and we're sorry," comes the response. The good news is she isn't alone. There are others who have the same thing, all over the country. One day while researching an obscure 17th-century medical text, Leitao comes across a disease called Morgellons, defined by "strange hairs" that break out on the backs of children, causing coughing and convulsions. To Leitao this sounds similar to her son's condition. From then on, in conversations and on her Web site, her son's condition is called Morgellons. Word spreads. Other Web sites and message boards warn of Morgellons, and the theories take off. Perhaps it is caused by chemical spills or bio-terror or even alien abductions. On a radio program called Coast to Coast--popular among people who believe in UFOs and ghosts--a New Mexico doctor reports that a former CIA agent told him the disease was caused by the French. A botched government experiment, he says, contaminated the water. All Evian drinkers are at risk. "I'm of the firm belief that this is the beginning of a worldwide epidemic," the doctor later declares. The mainstream media take notice. Television stations in Idaho, Alabama and California do stories on Morgellons. A station in San Francisco interviews Billy Koch, a former closer for the Oakland A's who says he has the disease. Doctors start calling. First from Houston, then from Georgia and then from San Francisco. All of them believe the disease is real. In 2004, Leitao forms the nonprofit Morgellons Research Foundation. Two members of its medical advisory board, Dr. Raphael Stricker and Ginger Savely, have been at the forefront of the "Lyme wars," an ongoing battle over a chronic strain of Lyme, which some doctors say does not exist, and how to treat it. Both have been instrumental in convincing lawmakers that chronic Lyme is a growing threat and that more money should be spent to better understand it. Despite their best efforts, the Morgellons Research Foundation is unable to drum up the same kind of support. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California writes a letter in their behalf, asking the CDC "what, if any, actions" it has taken regarding the disease. Senator John Cornyn of Texas asks the same of his state health department. In response, Leitao gets encouraging phone calls and letters from public health officials, but they ultimately go nowhere. Then, in 2005, the Morgellons movement gets a boost. An assistant professor of pharmacology at Oklahoma State University named Randy Wymore, who has built much of his career on studying obscure diseases, wants to research Morgellons. The fact that a professor at a medical school would even consider studying the disease is great news for Leitao. It's exactly what an organization in need of credibility has been waiting for. At the request of the MRF, patients and doctors begin sending Wymore samples of fibers they have extracted from their skin. The fibers all look very similar, but Wymore is skeptical. So he begins to gather his own samples, from Wal-Mart and carpet stores, from horses, dogs and cats, even from a llama at his daughter's elementary school. Over time he becomes more and more convinced that the fibers people are sending him are unlike anything seen before. Beginning in early 2006, 14 Morgellons patients come to Wymore's lab on two separate occasions. Six are children and eight are adults. All have fibers that appear to be growing from their skin. To prove that the fibers are not environmental contaminants, Wymore and his staff, which includes a doctor and a pediatrician, cut into the skin and remove colored fibers. "To find fibers underneath unbroken skin where there's no lesion, no scarring, no sign of scratching whatsoever, would preclude any possibility of this being contaminants from the environment," Wymore says. He sends the fibers to an independent pathology lab in Tulsa. During the testing process the fibers are accidentally drained down a sink. He sent another batch in June and eagerly awaits the results. Word of Wymore's research spreads. Dermatologists contact him, angry that he is giving this psychiatric disorder credibility. This is nonsense, they tell him. "I know there are some physicians who consider me part of the lunatic fringe," he says. "But I'm convinced that if they came into my lab and spent a day with me and these patients and saw what I'm seeing, they would believe this is real. I stopped doubting a long time ago." In the last few months, Wymore has been bombarded by phone calls and e-mails from Morgellons sufferers, family members and co-workers, even school principals who wonder if the disease is contagious. Doctors from all over the country have called, asking him how they should treat the disease. Since May, he has received 486 e-mails asking for some help or information. He wonders why the CDC isn't doing more. "Why am I the one dealing with these people?" he asks. "I have no problem dealing with people in Oklahoma as a sort of public service aspect of my job, but when it starts coming from New York and California and Washington and Minnesota, I mean, we've crossed state lines--it seems to me this should become a federal issue." Leitao is also frustrated that the CDC hasn't done more. Besides her youngest son, now 7, Leitao's two teenagers have also contracted Morgellons. All three experience joint pain, lesions, fibers and a loss of energy, and all miss school regularly. "We don't have time to wait for the CDC. We're going to absolutely move forward on our own. We have to," she says. "I have sick kids, and we don't have time to wait. None of us do." Back in Leander, Travis Wilson is getting worse. Fibers are coming out of his fingers, his neck, even his mouth. He wants to transfer to the University of Texas and major in psychology. Basically, he just wants to help people, he writes in his online journal. "All of my life I've taken and never given back," he writes. "I need to balance my karma." But he is wasting away. He can't eat because the fibers get in his food. When he bathes, black fibers seep out of his skin and ring the tub. He goes to doctors and tells them of the fibers, but they don't see anything. Maybe that's because they talk to him from across the room. Maybe that's because they're convinced he's delusional, without even really looking at him. "If you want to know about the sci-fi nightmare that is Morgellons disease, then feel free to go to the main site at www.morgellons.com," he writes in his online journal. "Check out the forums to read all the cool things like morphing hairs, cotton white and black pustules popping out of people's skin, and all sorts of neat physical and mental trauma that I've endured over the past eight months." He finds Ginger Savely, a nurse practitioner on the MRF medical advisory board who has a practice in Austin. Savely sees white fibers growing out of his hand and black specks that look like pepper that come out of his palm. If he brushes them off, they come right back. But even Savely doubts some of the things he says he's seeing. He points at the air and says, "See--there they are, there they are." Savely doesn't see anything. His mom is also worried. She assures Travis that no one has hacked into his computer, that bugs are not coming out of the screen. Privately, she worries that he is losing his mind. He sometimes sees black vans parked out in front of their house. Maybe he is the subject of a U.S. government experiment, he thinks. "Hey kids! From the same people who brought you the Gulf War Syndrome, now present to you Morgellons, a new biological warfare study that our government has launched on our own people!" he writes. "Have fun with it! Just don't go and commit suicide, junior, that'll screw up their neat and tidy data." He isolates himself, even from his mother, afraid the disease is contagious. They stop eating together, they separate their laundry, they avoid sitting on the same couch. His worst fear is that he will contaminate her. She goes out of town and he tears up the carpet and burns it, along with his clothes and their couch, trying to stop the spread of the disease. On March 24, he makes what sounds like a final entry in his online journal. "Still alive, sort of," he writes. "Here's a chapter from my novel I'm writing: Goodbye Blue Sky." He begins with a Smiths song. "Don't try to wake me in the morning, because I will be gone/Don't feel bad for me, I want you to know/Deep within the cell of my heart I will feel so glad to go/There is another world, there is a better world." Sometimes, it seems suicide is the only escape. No one disputes the link between mental illness and Morgellons. The question is which comes first. Morgellons sufferers, or Morgies, insist that the horrific symptoms of the disease bring on delusions and obsessive-compulsive behavior. Detractors say it's the other way around. One of the most popular Web sites on the disease is Morgellons Watch, a blog dedicated to poking holes in every known theory on the disease. The blog operator would only agree to an interview via e-mail and would only identify himself as Michael from Los Angeles. Leitao, the director of the Morgellons Research Foundation, suspects that Michael is a dermatologist. Michael describes his interest in Morgellons as a hobby, nothing more. "I hate seeing people misled. I'm a skeptic, and this just seemed something that would benefit from investigation," he says. "...I keep anonymous to avoid making enemies." One of Michael's theories is that Morgellons is a mass psychogenic illness. Other sites popular among skeptics, such as Mind Hacks, have suggested the same thing. A mass psychogenic illness is an illness in which real physical symptoms are created by the mind. Earlier this year in Portugal, for example, large numbers of schoolchildren came down with symptoms that mirrored those suffered by characters in a popular teenage soap opera. The outbreak came just days after an episode aired about a life-threatening virus descending on a school. Then there's Koro, or penis panic, in which a man believes his penis is shrinking into his body. Some men with Koro have gone as far as attaching fish hooks to their foreskin. In 1967, a Koro outbreak in Singapore subsided only after a massive propaganda campaign in which health officials assured the public it was anatomically impossible for the penis to retract into the body. The government also ordered the media to stop airing stories on reported cases. As recently as 2003, a similar epidemic swept through the capital of Sudan, where hundreds of men became convinced their penises would melt if they came into contact with Zionists trying to wipe them out. Word of the disease spread through the media and text messaging. One local columnist advised readers to avoid "a dark-skinned man" who was spreading the disease. Others thought the disease was passed through verbal curses or an electronic "robot" comb. Similar mass outbreaks have occurred in the United States. In the summer of 2002, the New York Times Magazine ran a story about a mysterious skin rash that appeared at more than two dozen elementary and middle schools across the country in the months after September 11. The rash would typically disappear the moment the kids got home from school. But there were also other questions. Why did more girls than boys catch it? Why weren't parents and siblings catching it? And above all, what was causing it? Health officials ran blood tests that were inconclusive. Environmental investigators couldn't find asbestos or chemical spills or anything else that would cause the rash. The Times story, titled "Hysteria Hysteria," speculated that the outbreak may have had something to do with the anthrax paranoia after September 11. Rumors spread that the rashes were caused by a terrorist attack cover-up or through donated books on Islam. Others traced the outbreak back to chemtrails from airplanes, a theory that would later be used to explain Morgellons. One of the experts quoted in the story was Tim Jones, an epidemiologist from the Tennessee Department of Health who studied a similar rash outbreak there. In that case, Jones concluded that the rashes were an example of mass psychogenic illness, a condition that could affect anyone, regardless of age or education. Sick Building Syndrome, for example, is surprisingly common, Jones says. The illness is spread through the power of suggestion. Someone at work smells something and wonders if natural gas is leaking. Word spreads, and before long, everyone in the office feels sick. "It's a very hard thing to explain to people because their symptoms aren't fake," Jones says. "Their symptoms are real. They are fainting, vomiting, hyperventilating, their heart rate is beating fast. They're not faking that stuff. They're real symptoms. The issue is, what's the genesis of the symptoms?" Jones doesn't think Morgellons is a mass psychogenic illness, however, because there's no such thing as a Morgellons outbreak. "You know, 50 people don't go to work and get hit with Morgellons," he says. Instead, the disease hits one person at a time. But there may be a similarity between the two in how hysteria--fueled by message boards, Web sites and the media--causes the diseases to spread. Many Morgellons sufferers say they never knew they had the disease until they saw it on television. A San Antonio television reporter who did a story on Morgellons in May had trouble finding interview subjects for her first piece on the subject. But after the segment aired, she was swamped with calls from people who thought they had the disease. Finding people to interview for a follow-up story was no problem at all. Part of the problem with a disease like Morgellons, Jones says, is that its symptoms are both vague and varied. Before public health officials can investigate, there must be a clear definition of the disease. The Morgellons Research Foundation says they have that definition, but there is no one symptom, or even group of symptoms, that defines Morgellons. While most Morgies have lesions and fibers, some do not. The schoolteacher in Allen who spoke to the Dallas Observer, for example, says she doesn't have any outward signs of the disease. Her symptoms include the feeling that something's crawling under the skin of her forehead, trouble sleeping and concentrating, and, possibly, the disintegration of her teeth and fingernails.
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Post by Watchman on Jul 22, 2006 14:13:27 GMT -5
Continued
"Trying to do studies on a group like this becomes virtually impossible because you may have 10 percent of the people who meet a real strict definition and a whole bunch of other people who don't," Jones says. "If you go through 10 patients and one is having discolored sweat, another one's having pieces of spaghetti stick out of his skin and another one's having, I don't know, heel pain, it's really hard to think what would tie these things together.
"Maybe there are three different diseases. In which case trying to give them all the same label and trying to figure out a single cause for what could be a group of diseases turns out to be an investigational nightmare."
The most important thing, Jones says, is for patients to find a doctor who will listen. Because as crazy as it sounds, Morgellons could be real.
Not a day goes by that the Centers for Disease Control doesn't hear from someone who claims to have Morgellons. Until recently, these complaints were sent to different departments because no one was sure how to classify Morgellons or even what to call it. Was it a disease, a syndrome, a psychiatric disorder?
Before contacting the CDC, the Morgellons Research Foundation pressed public health officials to investigate, first in California and then in Texas, because those two states had the most reported cases. Initially, their requests were met with genuine respect and concern, says Leitao, the MRF executive director. But over time, the response soured. In Texas, for example, Leitao was ultimately referred to a report linking adverse childhood experiences with serious behavioral health problems later in life. Perhaps this was the explanation for the symptoms of Morgellons disease.
The response from the CDC hasn't been much better. It has taken the federal agency more than a year just to form an investigational task force. And while the task force is good news to Morgies, some wonder if it's just talk. After all, the task force was first announced in January, and so far none of its members has been named publicly.
CDC spokesman Dan Rutz says the agency has moved slowly not because it doubts Morgellons is real, but because that's the nature of governmental agencies. And he insists that the task force is more than just lip service. An infectious disease specialist has been named to head the group (which will also include environmental disease and mental health experts), although he can't release her name.
"We aren't saying anyone is making this up, that's not our contention," Rutz says. "What we aren't sure of is if this represents a new entity, you know, a disease. I mean we're not using that term yet, we're kind of describing it as a syndrome, but for the most part there is no case definition.
"So we really don't know if these are apples and apples, these various cases, or if they represent common symptoms that may have different explanations if they are examined critically."
The biggest problem, Rutz says, is that the CDC has yet to receive a sample of something it can study. People have sent in material that they have removed from their bodies, but these samples are contaminated, Rutz says. The CDC does not have a clinic where doctors can take samples. Instead, they are waiting for samples to be sent in from public health officials.
"That's the Catch-22," says Savely, who treats Morgellons with strong doses of antibiotics, often without success. "The CDC won't look into it until they hear from local or state public health officials, and they won't look into it until they hear from physicians. Well, the physicians won't report the problem until the CDC gives them a directive on it. It's just insane."
Savely, who was voted Texas nurse practitioner of 2004 by her peers, was forced to leave the state in March. The doctor who supervised her practice said he could no longer do so, according to Savely, because the Texas Medical Board warned him that he was putting his professional standing at risk by backing her. She now practices in San Francisco under Dr. Raphael Stricker, who also treats Morgellons.
Savely says she doesn't mind being on the fringes of medicine. She points out that diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia were initially viewed with skepticism. "Well finally they're getting a little bit of respect now," she says. "At least from people realizing they actually do have something wrong with them. But for the longest time doctors just said, 'You need to see a psychotherapist, you don't need to see me.' You see this a lot in medicine--anything that's complex and can't be readily diagnosed by some known disease is generally referred off to a psychiatrist."
Tim Jones sees this as one of the biggest weaknesses of modern medicine.
"I think that particularly with diseases like this, where we don't know the clear cause, you can't just open up the page in the book and in 30 seconds of reading it tells you how to diagnose it and what to do. I mean those kinds of diseases are conducive to the seven-minute office visit, which our medical system is really pressuring," Jones says.
"Clinicians don't get paid proportionately for spending an hour with a patient; they don't get paid six times more than if they spend 10 minutes with them, so you have these competing pressures that clearly are going to contribute to frustration on the part of patients who are really hurting."
And that's what's happened with Morgellons. Because they have been ignored and stigmatized, the Morgies have formed their own online community, where wild theories rage, some of which may only heighten the paranoia and delusions many Morgies already feel.
"These are people digging into their own mysterious illness, and they have no business doing research with microscopes, they really don't," says Leitao, the MRF executive director. "There's no justice to the fact that they are researching their own illness as their lives completely fall apart, completely disintegrate."
On the morning of April 23, 2006, Lisa Wilson found her son Travis dead. Doctors later found between 50 and 100 pills in his stomach. Leander police called the death a suicide, but Lisa Wilson believes that the pills in his stomach were not the result of an overdose. Travis took 30 to 40 pills a day anyway, everything from vitamins to herbs to sleeping pills to worm medication for horses and cows. The way Wilson figures it, Travis was simply looking for relief.
In the weeks before his death, she tried everything she could to help her son. She would have flown him to another country to find a doctor if it would have helped. In the final year of his life she spent more than $16,000 on antibiotics.
At his funeral, she described Travis as a very shy young man who loved computers, electronics and the guitar. He was buried in Shelton, Washington, where he'd grown up, with a sword he and his father had bought at Excalibur Casino in Las Vegas. It was a symbol of the way he had fought Morgellons like a warrior, his mother said.
"I don't want Travis' death to be in vain," she said at his funeral. "If we can help other Morgellons sufferers to survive, this would make Travis very happy."
Not longer after, Travis Wilson's death was mentioned on Morgellons message boards and other Web sites. His story was featured on news programs in Portland and San Antonio. He became a symbol for Morgellons patients everywhere, the public face of a mysterious disease.
In the end, no one knows for sure what killed Travis Wilson. Although his mother says he no longer abused heroin, his online journal made frequent references to drugs and suicide, even in the last entry he left. Presenting him as the first Morgellons casualty, as some media have done, is misleading; too many other factors cloud the circumstances of his death.
But Lisa Wilson doesn't see it that way. It was Morgellons--a disease with no known cause or cure--that drove him into madness, desperation and loneliness. Even if his drug overdose was not accidental, he was only looking for relief from the pain caused by Morgellons, she says.
The greatest tragedy, she says, would be to ignore the disease or to dismiss it as imaginary. Because somewhere, there is someone else suffering just as her son did.
©2006 Village Voice Media All rights reserved.
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Post by Watchman on Aug 10, 2006 11:46:52 GMT -5
OSU prof says he's fighting ailment, not illusion
By NICOLE NASCENZI World Staff Writer He is doing research based in Tulsa to prove that Morgellons disease is real, not a figment of patients' imaginations. Randy Wymore doesn't care if the mysterious disease he is researching cannot be found in medical textbooks or is not recognized by many doctors.
What he cares about is helping the people who battle a disease characterized by slow-to-heal skin lesions and unexplained microscopic red, white or blue fibers sprouting from their skin.
Wymore, an assistant professor of pharmacology at Oklahoma State University's Center for Health Sciences in Tulsa, said he is months past arguing with medical professionals across the country about whether Morgellons disease is a real condition or an illness created by patients' imaginations.
What he wants is answers to the endless questions surrounding Morgellons disease, a syndrome that can also affect the nervous system and brain functions. Wymore said it can cause numbness in a patient's extremities, joint soreness, chronic fatigue, a "brain fog" or the inability to think clearly, and symptoms that mimic bipolar disorder.
He wants to know whether the illness is contagious, what causes it and, most importantly, how to cure it.
Wymore points out that all diseases, including AIDS, Ebola and SARS, were all new at some point and researchers had to create a body of scientific evidence to back up patients' claims.
A task force at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began meeting in June to investigate Morgellons. So far there is no evidence of an infectious agent, and CDC officials say there is not yet enough evidence even to call it a disease.
Wymore said he is not waiting for the CDC to tackle Morgellons, and the researcher will not have to work alone: OSU is investing resources in his project.
He will have a doctoral student to help him conduct epidemiological research this fall, and the OSU Foundation set up a research fund to help raise money for research, said Richard Wansley, vice president for research at the Center for Health Sciences.
There is so little research about this relatively new disease that "OSU can really make a difference," Wansley said.
Although Wymore has spent more than a year studying the disease, recent publicity about his research has generated a lot of telephone calls from people who report having Morgellons symptoms.
The call volume is expected to increase after ABC airs a "Primetime: Medical Mysteries" special that will focus in part on Morgellons disease at 8 p.m. Wednesday on KTUL, channel 8.
Wymore will be featured on the show.
OSU receptionist Lee Stidham answers many of the sometimes desperate calls from patients.
Stidham said the patients are grateful to have someone who believes their story and listens to their plight.
"I tell them, 'We don't have answers today; we may not tomorrow; but we will someday. Just try to hold on,' " she said.
Some doctors think Morgellons is produced by the mind, not the body.
Wymore, however, said the disease is not a delusion. He has taken samples from countless patients and analyzed the mysterious fibers and lesions, finding no explanation for the symptoms.
More than 5,500 families have reported that one or more people in their homes suffer from Morgellons, said Mary M. Leitao, executive director of the nonprofit Morgellons Research Foundation.
Leitao's 7-year-old son, Drew, has suffered from the disease since he was 2.
Several board members resigned from the Morgellons Research Foundation recently, alleging financial accounting problems.
Wymore, the former volunteer research director for the group, said he believes in the organization.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2006 , World Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
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Post by Watchman on Apr 23, 2007 12:37:09 GMT -5
Psychology Today Looks Into Morgellons Mystery Added: Apr 22nd, 2007 8:17 AM
A just-christened illness involves disorientation, multi-colored fibers bursting from sores, and the sensation of bugs crawling under the skin. Is this an age-old delusion or a disturbing new disease?
By:Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn
Four years ago, Mary Leitao plucked a fiber that looked like dandelion fluff from a sore under her 2-year-old son's lip. Three pediatricians, three allergists, two dermatologists, and many misdiagnoses later, she realized she had a problem. Her toddler son, Drew, had developed more sores, with more fibers poking out of them. Sometimes the fibers were white, and sometimes they were black, red, or blue. He also believed that insects were crawling under his skin, something he conveyed, in two-year-old fashion, by pointing to his lips and saying "bugs."
It wasn't eczema, or an allergy that physicians could discern. Something was seriously wrong. But no one believed Leitao. The last doctor she tried to consult, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University, not only refused to see her, but based on Drew's growing pile of medical records, suggested it was a case of Munchausen's by proxy, a psychiatric syndrome in which a parent pretends a child is sick or makes him sick to get attention from the medical system.
Frustrated, in March of 2004, Leitao picked a name for what afflicted Drew: Morgellons disease, from an obscure, 17th century French medical article describing an illness, called the morgellons, in which black hairs emerge from the skin. Then she put up a Web site. "I was hoping to hear from scientists or physicians who might understand the problem," she says. Instead, she heard from thousands of others, all describing the sores and fibers and an additional laundry list of neurological symptoms that included brain fog, fatigue, and muscle and joint pain, among others. "That's when I started to realize how big this problem was," says Leitao.
Many of the people who responded to Leitao's Web site—more than 8,000 to date—are, like Leitao, locked in conflict with doctors who don't believe they or their children are sick. This is not a new illness, say doctors, but a time-honored psychiatric disorder called delusional parasitosis; patients with the rare condition—mostly middle-aged women already anxious and depressed—claim to feel subcutaneous bugs. So-called Morgellons disease is just a variation on that theme. Medical skeptics complain that Leitao's Web site and the evocative name she chose are giving people a framework on which to hang their delusions, thus impeding the true, accepted treatment: antipsychotic drugs.
The debate has grown so heated that, recently, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention got involved, and not because they wanted to. They were inundated with calls from irate people who say they have this disorder and want answers. "More typically we get a very credible indication of an emerging problem from an official source," says Dan Rutz, spokesperson for the CDC. "This was driven by lay people and some clinicians who are frustrated and not sure what to do with these folks." The CDC is currently in the process of assembling a multidisciplinary research team to examine a cluster of patients sometime in 2007.
Until then, the Morgellons mystery continues.
The Mainstream Viewpoint Because skin symptoms are often the most visible aspect of this disease, dermatologists are usually the first to be consulted. Most have no doubt that what they're seeing is delusional parasitosis. One reason is that Morgellons patients often present them with what they consider to be hallmark evidence: a sample of what's in their skin. Psychiatrists call it "the matchbox sign," a reference to the little containers in which the samples are typically stored. (Some doctors now call it the Ziploc sign.) Morgellons patients often show up in the doctors' offices carrying Ziplocs full of fibers; dermatologists say they are simply fibers from clothing, embedded in self-imposed sores, whereupon they promptly offer a prescription for antipsychotic medication. Rarely, complain the patients, is their skin examined first. "You think you're bringing them evidence, but you're really just shooting yourself in the foot," says Leitao. "It just closes the door."
Noah Craft, a dermatologist at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California, has seen a handful of Morgellons patients, and talked with a number on the phone. He is one of the dermatologists who was approached by the CDC to take part in their investigation. He saw his first Morgellons case about three years ago. She came in talking about fibers. And though she didn't have a Ziploc with her, she was clutching a printout about Morgellons from the Web. Like many Morgellons patients, she'd been to 10 or 12 doctors before him, to no avail. Craft says that he, unlike many doctors, always examines these patients. There are a number of reasons one might have the sensation of crawling under the skin. For one, he says, there are real bugs, scabies, that do burrow into people. And withdrawal from drugs like methamphetamines can cause that sensation; so can chemical exposure, allergies, and dry, sensitive skin.
Once Craft had a patient whose crawling sensation turned out to be melanoma that had spread to her brain. "You have to do due diligence to rule out other causes," he says.
But when Craft examined his first patient, he found no evidence of anything unusual. And because he saw nothing, he felt no reason to do something as invasive as a biopsy. "I thought it was delusional parasitosis," he says. Gently, he suggested that the condition might be psychological. She never came back.
Since then, with other Morgellons patients, he has taken the examination further and biopsied their skin. But he's seen nothing to suggest that it's a real condition—especially not fibers in the patients' skin. In fact, the only place Craft says he has ever seen the fibers are on Leitao's Web site. From his computer screen, he says, "they look like fibers of fabric and, on occasion, collagen fibers from within the skin. In the biopsies I have taken, there appear to be only normal skin and inflammation, as one would find in a bump that has been picked at."
Lone Voices While most physicians seem to lean toward the delusional parasitosis diagnosis, there are a handful of people who think there's something real going on here. About a year ago, Oklahoma State neuroscientist Randy Wymore stumbled upon Leitao's Morgellons site and became intrigued. Wymore called Leitao and asked if there were any fiber samples he could look at. Within days, Ziplocs were arriving in the mail from around the country. Though the fibers all resembled one another, he says, they looked like no other synthetic or natural fiber he compared them to. Ultimately, he asked the fiber experts on the Tulsa police department's forensics team to examine them.
First they employed a type of spectroscopy that identifies the chemical structures of fibers and compared them to their database of 800 fibers. No match.
Next they subjected fibers to gas chromatography. Compounds put through this process are encased in a vacuum chamber and exposed to high heat; the temperature at which they reach boiling point is a clue to what compound they are made of. The forensic experts had a database that included the boiling point of 90,000 organic compounds with which to compare the fibers. But the machine ran to its highest temperature, 1,400 degrees, and apart from some slight blackening, nothing happened. The fiber experts were mystified. "The conclusion we were left with is that they are unknown fibers, not simply contaminants from clothing sticking to scabs," says Wymore.
Wymore, who is not a physician, also asked Rhonda Casey, the chief of the pediatrics department at Oklahoma State University Hospital, to take a look at some of the patients for him, to get a medical opinion. "Honestly, when he first told me about it, I thought, they're all nuts," says Casey. But she changed her mind. "There was not one patient I saw who did not look ill," she says. What's more, they all looked ill in the same way, with neurological symptoms, including confusion, foot drop, in which a person loses control of their foot and has trouble walking, and a sagging mouth when they spoke. Many had been diagnosed with atypical forms of neurological diseases like Parkinson's or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease).
She examined their skin via a dermatoscope, a light tool with a magnifying lens. And she did biopsies on both their lesions and apparently healthy skin. She says she saw fibers embedded in both places. The white ones, she says, are hard to see. A dermatologist who either didn't look at all, or didn't use a dermatoscope, might not see them under the skin. But some—the black, red, and blue ones—are blatantly obvious, she says. One young girl had a small pimple on her thigh with a bundle of black fibers just barely protruding from it. Many doctors have accused these patients of embedding fibers in the sores themselves, but Casey doesn't believe it. "As a physician, I can't imagine reproducing what I saw in that little girl's leg."
There's also some evidence of an overlap with Lyme disease. Ginger Savely, a San Francisco nurse practitioner with a long history of treating Lyme patients, now sees Morgellons patients and says 90 percent of them test positive for Lyme disease. "I think that one of two things is happening," she says. "Either there's a co-infection people are getting at the same time they get Lyme, because there are a lot of infections spread by ticks." Or whatever is causing Morgellons is something ubiquitous that many of us are exposed to, but the disease develops only in people with weakened immune systems, like those with Lyme disease.
Morgellons on My Mind One complicating factor, as even Leitao and Casey admit, is that there are neurological and psychological symptoms that come with Morgellons that make the patients difficult to deal with at times, and make it seem as if they really belong on the psychiatrist's couch. "Patients start to act unusual," says Casey. "They get forgetful. They often have a speech hesitation, and they often have a hard time telling their story coherently." To her, it's not surprising. "The disease affects the brain."
New Jersey psychiatrist Robert Bransfield, who has a number of Morgellons patients, agrees. "They don't start out difficult to deal with," he says. "But when it progresses, it can result in quite extreme paranoia, even delusions." Others have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, ADHD, autism, and even atypical Parkinson's as a result of their personality change.
Beyond all that, being told it's all in your head when you feel sick is bound to be hurtful, says one Morgellons patient who happens to be a clinical psychologist working with chronic-pain patients, who are in doubt themselves. The hurt leads to contentious encounters with doctors, who then feel more justified than ever in seeing the patients as primarily psychiatrically disturbed. Indeed, the medical literature on delusional parasitosis is full of discussion about how to broach the subject without alienating the patient. An article on Morgellons in the November 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology actually argues that Morgellons is a gift of sorts—a way of suggesting the delusional parasitosis diagnosis without having to use the off-putting word "delusion."
Casey says her stance on Morgellons is legitimate because of the many cases she has seen. Most doctors opining about the condition—Craft, for instance—have seen just a handful of patients at best. "I think it's a disgrace," she says of medical peers who have dismissed the patients without studying the phenomenon in full. Physicians are busy and have about 10 minutes to spend with a patient, she adds. They want to walk into a room, know what's going on right away, and write a prescription. Something unusual is time consuming and difficult, she says, and many doctors don't have time.
Besides, doctors are trained to find an answer. Many will make a diagnosis of delusional parasitosis or hypochondria more readily than conclude an office visit without a diagnosis. Nor is the system necessarily set up to investigate an unknown quantity. "If you send a fiber sample to lab, the report will often come back saying textile contaminant," says Casey. But she watched one laboratorian label a fiber by simply looking under a microscope. "I said, 'How can you tell?' And he said, 'I'm looking at it.' And that's how it's done in every lab across the country." That's why she asked forensic fiber experts to take a look.
On a deeper level, the structure of modern medicine can discourage examination of complex, multisystemic disorders. Most doctors are still poorly prepared to address illnesses with both physical and psychological components. "Your average physician does a one-month rotation in psychiatry in medical school," Bransfield says. So when there's a disorder that has physical and psychiatric symptoms, physicians often don't understand how to put all the pieces together. "One way to think of it is that there's quite a bit of cross talk between the immune system and the nervous system," Banfield adds. "But there isn't a lot of cross talk between psychiatrists and immunologists and infectious disease doctors. The way we've compartmentalized specialties contributes to our difficulty in dealing with problems like this." When diagnoses are in this gray zone of understanding, they often end up in the field of mental health, he says, even when there's a solid physiological cause.
Down the Road It's hard to say yet which pattern the Morgellons phenomenon will follow. Will it be the next Lyme disease, validated by the medical community? Or will its victims reside in diagnostic purgatory forevermore? Medicine is full of phenomena that sounded like psychological ailments when first proposed but are now linked to invasive pathogens. Ulcers are caused by spirochetes, not stress. Syphilis is a bacterial infection that reaches the brain, not a kind of insanity. Tuberculosis is another infectious disease, not the psychosomatic illness it was first thought to be.
But while these stories become bits of medical lore, and the names of the scientists who made the discoveries are now well-known, the stories of the patients who were caught in the middle of the confusion are rarely told. Mary Leitao says she never wanted to be an activist. "I'm just a scared mother," she says. And she wants an answer, whatever it is, soon. Not long after Drew became symptomatic, his two older siblings, Jeremy, 16, and Samantha, 17, started exhibiting signs of it, too. Samantha is plagued by cognitive problems, fatigue, and joint pain. She was once in the gifted program; but now, in her senior year of high school, just started homebound instruction. Jeremy also suffers from fatigue and some cognitive problems. But he pushes himself to get to school. "I'm not sure how much longer he can push himself," says Leitao. Drew, now 8, doesn't seem to be cognitively afflicted, but his skin, she says, is riddled with sores and scars.
There are other families in which more than one person suffers from the symptoms too, says Leitao. But rather than see that as an indication of the disease's infectious nature, the medical community has labeled it "folie a famille" (madness of the family). They have, she says, an explanation for everything.
Diseases Under Fire The controversy over Morgellons is just the latest example of medical establishment skepticism. Diseases greeted with incredulity in recent years include:
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A disorder characterized by persistent and crippling fatigue unrelieved by rest, tender lymph nodes, trouble concentrating, muscle and joint pain, and headaches. Lab tests may reveal nothing unusual.
Status: Generally accepted. The CDC now recognizes it as a legitimate disorder.
Fibromyalgia: A chronic pain disorder in which sufferers complain of aching in their muscles, ligaments, and tendons. It may be triggered after an illness or after injury impacts the way the nervous system processes pain.
Status: Mostly accepted; some doctors are still skeptical.
Chronic Lyme Disease: A syndrome of pain, fatigue, and cognitive symptoms that continue after several weeks of treatment for documented acute Lyme.
Status: The subject of medical debate with two camps arguing over whether it is infectious or post-infectious.
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome: Low levels of exposure to chemicals like gas, perfume, and smoke cause symptoms, including extreme fatigue, burning eyes, wheezing, breathlessness, muscle and joint pain, and poor concentration. It's also known as idiopathic Environmental Intolerance.
Status: Hotly debated.
Gulf War Syndrome: After troops returned from the Gulf War in 1991, many veterans complained of fatigue, joint and muscle aches, cognitive problems, headaches, and respiratory difficulties.
Status: Still under debate; some speculate it may be related to MCSS.
Psychology Today Magazine © Copyright 1991-2007 Sussex Publishers
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Post by Watchman on Aug 23, 2008 14:00:13 GMT -5
Agrobacterium & Morgellons Disease, A GM Connection?
by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe Cummins Global Research, August 20, 2008
Preliminary findings suggest a link between Morgellons Disease and Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium extensively manipulated and used in making GM crops; has genetic engineering created a new epidemic?
A fully illustrated and referenced version is posted on ISIS members’ website. Details here.
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CDC launch investigation on Morgellons’ Disease The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States announced the launch of an investigation on ‘Morgellons Disease’ in January 2008 [1], after receiving thousands of complaints from people with this bewildering condition, which it describes as follows [2]: “Persons who suffer from this unexplained skin condition report a range of cutaneous (skin) symptoms including crawling, biting and stinging sensations; granules, threads, fibers, or black speck-like materials on or beneath the skin, and/or skin lesions (e.g., rashes or sores). In addition to skin manifestations, some sufferers also report fatigue, mental confusion, short term memory loss, joint pain, and changes in visions.”
Morgellons Disease first became known in 2001, when Mary Leitao created a web site describing the illness in her young son, which she named after a 17th century medical study in France describing similar symptoms [3]. Until then, people with Morgellons Disease have been diagnosed as cases of “delusional parasitosis”, in which the symptoms are deemed entirely imaginary, and lesions allegedly due to self-inflicted wounds.
Indeed, the debate over Morgellons Disease has continued in the pages of medical and scientific journals right up to the CDC’s announcement [4-7]
Dr. Michele Pearson, principal investigator for the CDC said [1] that the primary goals of the study are “to learn more about who may be affected with this condition, the symptoms they experience and to look for clues about factors that might contribute to the condition,” adding that the condition is “complex”, and “may be due to multiple factors.”
In response to questions from journalists at the CDC press conference, Pearson said:
“ We are aware that many patients have suffered from this condition. And, I can tell you that here at CDC, we have really been seeing an increasing number of these reports over the past year or so.”
CDC’s investigation is to be carried out in conjunction with Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Division of Research and the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
Dr. Joe Selby, Director of the Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Division of Research, said the study would proceed in three stages. In the first stage, they will identify all members who may have seen a Kaiser Permanente physician with symptoms suggestive of this condition at any point during the 18 months between July 1 2006 and December 31, 2007, and determine whether they meet eligibility criteria for the study. In stage two, all eligible members will be invited to complete a comprehensive web based or telephone survey conducted by the CDC that examines the duration and severity of a variety of symptoms. And in stage three, those with active symptoms will be invited to the division of research for an extensive clinical examination including collection of skin biopsies, blood and urine samples.
In a paper [6] published in 2006, researchers from the Morgellons Research Foundation [3] identified the states of California, Texas and Florida as having the highest number of cases of Morgellons disease in the United States. Primary clusters were noted in Los Angeles and San Francisco (California) and Houston, Dallas and Austin (Texas). California accounted for 26 percent of cases in the US, but all 50 US states and 15 other nations, including Canada, the UK, Australia, and the Netherlands, have reported cases of Morgellons disease. The two main occupational groups reporting symptoms are nurses and teachers, with nurses outnumbering teachers three to one. The risk factor common to both groups is suspected to be the possibility of transmitted infectious agents.
Skin lesions and fibres may not be readily apparent in all individuals with the disease, as family members of patients often report similar systemic disease symptoms without skin symptoms. Families in which all members are affected often have suspected simultaneous exposure to an inciting agent. Contact with soil or waste products appears to be associated with the disease. Cases have been reported in cats and dogs, as well as horses.
What finally prompted CDC to investigate the disease? The Morgellons Research Foundation [3] was set up in 2002 in honour of Mary Leitao, the Foundation’s executive director. It publicises the plight of patients with similar conditions and operates a registry of afflicted families. The Foundation also funds scientific research. It has a Medical Advisory Board of seven with M.D. degree and two with nursing degrees. In addition, it has a Board of Nursing with five other nurses, and a Scientific Advisory Board of six scientists, all with Ph.D. degree; one of which is Vitaly Citovsky. It may have been Citovsky’s discovery last year that finally persuaded the CDC to announce an investigation.
The Agrobacterium connection Vitaly Citovsky is a professor of molecular and cell biology at Stony Brook University in New York (SUNY). He is a world authority on the genetic modification of cells by Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium causing crown gall disease in plants, that has been widely used in creating genetically modified (GM) plants since the 1980s because of its ability to transfer a piece of its genetic material, the T-DNA on its tumour-inducing (Ti) plasmid to the plant genome (see later for details).
Citovsky’s team took scanning electron microscope pictures of the fibres in or extruding from the skin of patients suffering from Morgellons disease, confirming that they are unlike any ordinary natural or synthetic fibres (see Fig. 1, assembled from Citovsky’s website [8]).
Figure 1. Scanning electron microscope images of fibres from skin biopsies of patients with Morgellons Disease - a, white fibre with calcite, scale bar 10 mm; b, green fibre with alumina ‘rock’ protruding, scale bar 20 mm; c, various ribbon-like, cylindrical and faceted fibres all coated with minerals, scale bar 10 mm; d, skin lesion with fibres stabbing through the epidermis, scale bar 300 mm
They also analysed patients for Agrobacterium DNA. Skin biopsy samples from Morgellons patients were subjected to high-stringency polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for genes encoded by the Agrobacterium chromosome and also for Agrobacterium virulence (vir) genes and T-DNA on its Ti plasmid. They found that “all Morgellons patients screened to date have tested positive for the presence of Agrobacterium, whereas this microorganism has not been detected in any of the samples derived from the control, healthy individuals.” Their preliminary conclusion is that “Agrobacterium may be involved in the etiology and/or progression” of Morgellons Disease.
The unpublished findings have been posted on a website [8] since January 2007. They were further publicized in the “first ever” Morgellons conference in Austin Texas, attended by 100 in March 2008 [9]. A growing list of people are registered with Morgellons Disease, totalling 12 106 worldwide recorded by Morgellons Research Foundation [3], as of 12 April 2008.
San Francisco physician, Raphael Stricker, one of only a few doctors who believe the disease is real, said [9]. “There’s almost always some history of exposure to dirt basically either from gardening or camping or something.” He is one of the co-authors on the Agrobacterium research done in SUNY, which reported finding Agrobacterium DNA in all 5 Morgellons patients studied. Stricker suggests it is transmitted by ticks, like Lyme disease, and in a recent survey of 44 Morgellons patients in San Francisco, 43 of them also tested positive for the bacterium causing Lyme disease. Another factor consistent with Agrobacterium being a causative agent, if not the causative agent, is that when patients are treated with antibacterials for their Lyme disease, remission of Morgellons symptoms is seen in most of them [6].
Stricker also told his audience that Agrobacterium lives in the soil, and is known to cause infections in animals and human beings with compromised immune systems. It can cause skin lesions when injected into Swiss mice, a strain that is immune deficient, he said.
At this point, the findings on the Agrobacterium connection are still preliminary, as only seven patients have been studied. Nevertheless, the implications are far-reaching if this connection is confirmed, as existing evidence (reviewed below) suggests a link between Agrobacterium and genetic engineering in the creation of new disease agents, and it is paramount for the CDC investigation to include this aspect, if only to rule it out.
Agrobacterium and the genetic engineering connection Agrobacterium not only infects human and other animal cells, it also transfers genes into them. It was SUNY professor Citovsky and his team that made the discovery some years ago [10]. Until then, the genetic engineering community had assumed that Agrobacterium did not infect animal cells, and certainly would not transfer genes into them.
Agrobacterium was found to transfer T-DNA into the chromosomes of human cells.
In stably transformed HeLa cells, the integration occurred at the right border of the T-DNA, exactly as would happen when it is being transferred into a plant cell genome, suggesting that Agrobacterium transforms human cells by a mechanism similar to that involved in transforming plants cells (see Box 1). Human cancer cells, neurons and kidney cells were all transformed with the Agrobacterium T-DNA. Commenting on this research in 2001, Joe Cummins had warned of hazards to laboratory and farm workers [11] (i-sis news11/12)
The Agrobacterium vector system for gene transfer Since the discovery in the 1970s that Agrobacterium can transfer genes into plants causing crown gall disease, the soil bacterium has been developed into a vector for inserting desirable genes into the plant genome to create transgenic (GM) plants [12].
Agrobacterium transfers T-DNA – a small region of approximately 5 to 10 percent of a resident tumour-inducing (Ti) or root-inducing (Ri) plasmid – into numerous species of plants; and as later turns out, also to fungi, algae, and even animal and human cells [13, 14] (see main text).
Transfer requires three major elements [13]: T-DNA border direct repeat sequences of 25 base pairs that flank the T-DNA and delineate the region transferred into the host, the virulence (vir) genes located on the Ti/Ri plasmid, and various genes on the bacterial chromosome. Plant genes are also involved in the successful integration of T-DNA [15]. The T-DNA contains oncogenes (cancer genes or gene for forming tumours) and genes for synthesizing opines; none of which is essential for T-DNA transfer, so they can be deleted and replaced with genes of interest and selectable markers.
Furthermore, the vir genes and T-DNA region need not be on the same replicating plasmid. This gave rise to the binary vector systems in which T-DNA and the vir genes are located on separate replicating units. The T-DNA containing unit is the binary vector and contains also the origin(s) of replication that could function both in E. coli and Agrobacterium tumefaciens, and antibiotic resistance marker genes used to select for the presence of the binary vector in bacteria. The replicating unit containing the vir genes is the ‘helper’ plasmid. Strains of Agrobacterium harbouring the two separate units are considered ‘disarmed’ if they do not contain oncogenes that could be transferred to a plant.
The association of Morgellons Disease with dirt and soil where Agrobacterium lives, the widespread use of Agrobacterium in genetic engineering of plants, and the ability of Agrobacterium to infect human cells, all point towards a possible role of genetic engineering in the aetiology of Morgellans disease via Agrobacterium.
Extensive genetic manipulation of Agrobacterium does have the potential to transform it into an aggressive human pathogen. Genetic engineering is nothing if not enhanced and facilitated horizontal gene transfer and recombination, which is widely acknowledged to be the main route for creating new pathogens. Mae-Wan Ho was among an international panel of scientists have raised this very issue in 1998, calling for a public enquiry into the possible contributions of genetic engineering biotechnology to the aetiology of infectious diseases which has greatly increased since genetic engineering began in the 1970s [16].
The epidemiological data of Morgellons Disease are very incomplete, and the Morgellons Research Foundation’s registry of more than 12 000 families afflicted worldwide is almost certainly only a fraction of the emerging epidemic. Still, it is significant that the majority of the cases are in the United States, the first country to release GM crops and remaining the top producer ever since.
There are other findings implicating Agrobacterium in transgenic plants released into the environment, particularly during the early years of field trials, when knowledge was poor and safety measures not as stringent as they may be today.
Agrobacterium persists in transgenic plants and is a vehicle for gene escape By the late 1990s, the Agrobacterium vector system became very widely used, and many GM crops created were commercially released.
Scientists at the Kinsealy Research and Development Centre in Dublin, Ireland, and the Scottish Crop Research Institute in Dundee, Scotland, were concerned that the inserted genes in plants would spread to wild populations by cross-pollination or by horizontal gene transfer to unrelated species, which was by then well-documented in the scientific literature.
They considered it “imperative” to address the risk posed in using Agrobacterium as a tool in genetic engineering [17], given its ability to transfer genes to plants. The transformation procedure involves inoculating the cells or tissue explants with Agrobacterium and co-cultivation the plant cells and bacterium for a short period, followed by the elimination of the bacterium with antibiotics.
However, if all the bacteria were not eliminated, then “release of these plants may also result in release of the Agrobacterium [with the foreign genes]”, which will serve as a vehicle for further gene escape, at least to other Agrobacterium strains naturally present in the soil.
Although various antibiotics have been used to eliminate Agrobacterium following transformation, the researchers stated that “very few authors actually test to ensure that the antibiotics succeed.”
The difficulty is compounded because the bacterium can remain latent within the plant tissue. So putting transgenic plant material into culture medium without antibiotics and finding no Agrobacterium is no guarantee that the transgenic plant is free of the bacterium, as was often assumed.
In their study, they investigated the ability of antibiotics to eliminate Agrobacterium tumefaciens after transformation in three model systems: Brassica (mustard), Solanum (potato), and Rubus (raspberry). The antibiotics carbenicillin, cefataxime and ticaracillin were used respectively to eliminate the bacterium at four times the minimum bactericidal concentration, as recommended. They found that none of the antibiotic succeeded in eliminating Agrobacterium.
The contamination levels increased from 12 to 16 weeks to such an extent that transgenic Solanum cultures senesced and died. Contamination in shoot material decreased over 16 to 24 weeks possibly because only the apical node was used in further culture, but even that did not eliminate Agrobacterium from all the samples; 24 percent remained contaminated at 24 weeks.
The binary vector was also present under non-selective conditions up to 6 months after transformation, where approximately 50 percent of contaminated material still harboured bacterial cells with the binary vector at high levels of about 107 colony forming units per gram. The researchers pointed out: “Here is where the possibility of gene escape arises. The presence of the disarmed Agrobacterium in the tissue would not be a problem if the binary vector had been lost, but now its survival and spread are real possibilities.” The binary vector contains the foreign genes as well as antibiotic resistance marker gene(s).
There is no limit to the foreign genes that can be inserted into the binary vector. A few years earlier, a research group in Israel had inserted a viroid that causes disease in citrus fruits into the disarmed Ti plasmid of Agrobacterium and used that to infect and transform several plant species including tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) Gynura aurantiaca, avocado (Persea americana), and grapefruit (Citrus paradisi) grafted on Troyer citrange (Pancirus trifoliate x C. sinensis) [18]. Extracts prepared from tissues of the infected plants 38-90 days after inoculation were plated on selective media and found to contain large amounts of the engineered bacteria.
The researchers warned of “newly formed combinations of persistently transmitted viruses” coupled with “the opportunistic and systemically moving Agrobacterium vector infectious to a wide host range might eventually cause infection and damage to crop plants or natural vegetation” that are “not presently visited by the traditional vectors of the virus disease.”
In other words, Agrobacterium persisting in transgenic plants released into the environment has the potential to spread new diseases, and to plants that normally would not be infected by the disease agents. At the time, the researchers did not know that Agrobacterium would also infect animals and humans, and could spread new diseases to them as well.
Have these warnings been heeded by other researchers? There is no evidence they have been taken on board. Agrobacterium has since been shown to transform at least 80 different non-plant species including yeasts and other fungi, algae, mammalian and human cells, also the gram positive bacterium Streptomyces lividans. In a recent review, the researchers stated [14]: “Future research has to show whether Agrobacterium-mediated transformation contributed to horizontal gene transfer between microorganisms in the rhizosphere.”
But there is already evidence suggesting that Agrobacterium can indeed engage in horizontal gene transfer with a wide range of bacteria in the soil. (For more on horizontal gene transfer see [19] Horizontal Gene Transfer from GMOs Does Happen, SiS 38)
Agrobacterium gene transfer mechanisms similar to conjugation in bacteria Ho first alerted regulators to the potential of Agrobacterium contaminating GM plants to facilitate the escape of transgenes in 2003 (see Living with the Fluid Genome [20] and The Case for A GM-Free Sustainable World [21] ISIS publications). By then, Gayle Ferguson and Jack Heinemann at the University of Canterbury, Christchurh, New Zealand, had already pointed out in a review that the process whereby Agrobacterium injects T-DNA into plant cells strongly resembles conjugation, the normal mating process between bacteria [22].
Conjugation, mediated by certain bacterial plasmids, depends on a sequence called the origin of transfer (oriT) on the DNA transferred. All other functions - called tra for trans-acting functions - can be supplied from unlinked sources. Thus, ‘disabled’ plasmids with no trans-acting functions, can nevertheless be transferred by helper plasmids, the same as the binary vector system of Agrobacterium (Box 1). The resemblance does not stop there.
The left and right borders of T-DNA are similar to oriT and can be replaced by it. Furthermore, the disarmed T-DNA binay vector, lacking oncogenes as well as virulence genes, can be helped by similar genes belonging to many other pathogenic bacteria. The trans-kingdom gene transfer apparatus of Agrobacterium and the conjugative systems of bacteria are both involved in transporting macromolecules, not just DNA but also protein.
Thus, transgenic plants with contaminating Agrobacterium [20] “have a ready route for horizontal gene escape, via Agrobacterium, helped by the ordinary conjugative mechanisms of many other bacteria that cause diseases, which are present in the environment.” In the process, new and exotic disease agents could be created.
Investigations on the role of Agrobacterium in Morgellons Disease urgently needed The investigation launched by the CDC needs to clarify the role of Agrobacterium in the aetiology of Morgellons Disease as a matter of urgency. This should include:
Molecular characterization of Agrobacterium DNA sequences in Morgellans Disease patients Design of suitable probes for diagnostic purposes and for monitoring soil samples and other suspected sources of infection Introduction of stringent tests for Agrobacterium contamination for all transgenic plants already released or about to be released into the environment.
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